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THE 

LONGFELLOW MEMORIAL 

ASSOCIATION 

1882-1922 

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 

BY 

WINTHROP S. SCUDDER 




PRINTED BY THE ASSOCIATION 

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 

1922 




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THE 

LONGFELLOW MEMORIAL 

ASSOCIATION 

1882-1922 

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 

BY 

WINTHROP S. SCUDDER 




PRINTED BY THE ASSOCIATION 

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 
1922 






First printed in the Boston Sunday Herald 
of September 3, 1922 



v.'.U^ 



THE COSMOS PRESS, INC., CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

was born in 

Portland^ Maine, February 27, 1807. 

Died in 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 

March 24, 1882. 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 

BY 

WINTHROP S. SCUDDER 

THE Longfellow Memorial Associa- 
tion having accomplished its purpose, 
voted to dissolve at a final meeting held in 
1922 at the house of its President, Dr. 
Charles W. Eliot. It was then decided that 
this fact be published, together with a short 
sketch of the Association and its work; and 
the present writer was asked by the President 
to prepare such a sketch. 

The idea of an Association for the purpose 
of providing a Memorial to Henry Wads- 
worth Longfellow was first given public ex- 
pression a few days after the death of the 
poet, in a letter published in a Boston news- 
paper of March 30, 1882. Five days later, on 
April 4, a meeting was held to consider the 
formation of such an organization at the 
house of Arthur Oilman, 5 Waterhouse Street, 
Cambridge. 

5 



The following gentlemen were present: 

Hon. James A. Fox, Mayor 

Charles Deane 

Epes Sargent Dixwell 

Arthur Gilman 

Francis B. Gilman 

Professor Asa Gray 

Rev. Dr. George Zabriskie Gray 

Rev. Dr. Frederick H. Hedge 

Hon. Henry O. Houghton 

Professor J. Laurence Laughlin 

Rev. Dr. Alexander McKenzie 

Professor Charles Eliot Norton 

Horace E. Scudder 

Henry Van Brunt 

Benjamin Vaughan 

Dr. Henry P. Walcott 

Justin Winsor 

Dr. Morrill Wyman 

Five others who could not be present ex- 
pressed by letter their cordial interest: 

Isaac W. Danforth 
Professor Ephraim W. Gurney 
Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson 
Professor Eben N. Horsford 
Professor James B. Thayer 

Of these eminent men, Dr. Henry P. Wal- 
cott, is the only one who was also present at 

6 . 



the last meeting of the Association, when it 
was voted out of existence. 

Other meetings were held; and the Associa- 
tion was incorporated May 23, 1882, and 
organized June 7, when it was voted that 
annual meetings should be held on Longfel- 
low's birthday, February 27. The following 
officers were elected: 

James Russell Lowell, President 

Charles Deane 

Charles W. Eliot 

Oliver Wendell Holmes \ Vice Presidents 

William Dean Howells 

John Greenleaf Whittier 

Arthur Oilman, Secretary 
John Bartlett, Treasurer 

Mr. Lowell who was abroad accepted his 
office by cable. 

In reading through the reports of the Secre- 
taries through the years of the existence of the 
Association, one is deeply impressed with the 
dignity of its active membership, always 
limited to one hundred. It included the names 
of representative men in business, in litera- 
ture, and in the other professions. 

There have been three presidents of the 
Association, — James Russell Lowell, Charles 



Eliot Norton, and Charles W. Eliot; two 
Secretaries, Arthur Oilman, unremitting in 
his interest till his death, and Judge Robert 
Walcott who has faithfully served the Asso- 
ciation since 1909; and three treasurers, John 
Bartlett able to serve but one year; Benjamin 
Vaughan who carried the Association through 
the active period of its financial existence, and 
Edmund M. Parker who brought its affairs to 
a successful conclusion. 

Even before the Association was organized, 
at one of the preliminary meetings, that of 
April 14, a report was read which contained 
the following recommendations: 

"the erection under the direction of a competent 
committee, of a monument upon the lot of land 
opposite the late residence of Mr. Longfellow, 
including a portrait statue protected by an archi- 
tectural canopy or other protection, and the lay- 
ing out of the lot as a public park, to be surren- 
dered to the City of Cambridge to be kept open for- 
ever, when the City is ready to accept the trust." 

In order to take advantage of the general 
and widespread interest in Longfellow the 
Association gave school children the oppor- 
tunity to contribute each a dime, in return 
for which each child should receive a fac- 
simile of a bit of Longfellow's manuscript and 

8 



a picture of his home; adults could become 
honorary members by subscribing one dollar, 
receiving an engraved certificate. From this 
method, unfortunately, an impression went 
out that large amounts were not desired, and 
in consequence, many persons who were 
ready to make larger subscriptions desisted, 
fearing to appear ostentatious. 

Thousands of children and many adults 
from coast to coast subscribed; but the net 
result of even thousands of such small sub- 
scriptions could not produce an adequate 
sum. Therefore, eventually, larger subscrip- 
tions were asked for, and were received from 
a large number of persons widely distributed 
geographically. 

A natural expression of the general interest 
felt was shown by three authors' readings 
which brought in a considerable sum of 
money and gave a vivid picture of a vanished 
society. These were notable events. The 
first reading was suggested and planned by 
William Dean Howells in 1887; and to quote 
from the Secretary's report of that year was: 

"made very successful by the eiTorts of Mrs. 
James T. Fields and other ladies of Boston, sup- 
plemented by the generosity of Moses Kimball, 



the proprietor of the Boston Museum. The occa- 
sion was extraordinary. The Museum was 
crowded with persons who paid Hberally for ad- 
mission. Large numbers of them were unable even 
to get seats; and for several hours they listened 
breathlessly to the reading of authors who were 
seated as in a drawing-room on the stage, with 
Mrs. Howe at a table in the centre. They had 
generously given their services for the purpose of 
the Association. Those who contributed on this 
occasion were, in the order in which they read, 
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain), Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, Edward Everett Hale, Mrs. Julia Ward 
Howe, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Thomas Went- 
worth Higginson, William Dean Howells, George 
William Curtis, and James Russell Lowell." 

The second reading was held in Sanders 
Theatre, Cambridge, on Longfellow's birth- 
day, February 27, 1888, and was enthusiasti- 
cally carried out by Charlotte Fiske Bates 
(Mrs. Roge). 

Francis H. Underwood, United States 
Consul in Glasgow, undertook the third 
reading in 1889. It was held in the "Queen's 
Rooms" of that city, and was a gathering of 
leaders in the social and literary world. The 
Lord Provost of Glasgow, Sir James King, 
Bart., presided, and addresses were made by 
Professor Jebb and others. 

ID 




DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH. SCULPTOR 




THE 

LONGFELLOW 

MEMORLAL 



The Jignres are: 

MILES STAN DISH 

SANDALPHON 

THE VILLAGE 
BLACKSMITH 

THE 
SPANISH STUDENT 

EVANGELINE 

HIAWATHA 



Other evidence of interest was the forma- 
tion of Longfellow Memorial Associations 
throughout the country. 

After 1889, the Association was not active 
in raising funds. The considerable sum of 
money invested was left to accumulate until 
it was sufficient to cover the cost of a Memo- 
rial Monument; for in the words of Dr. Eliot, 

"They were sure that the fame of Longfellow 
would endure without any local monument, and 
that an adequate monument would be appropri- 
ate and welcome after the lapse of a whole genera- 
tion, or of many generations." 

That this belief was well founded has been 
proved through all subsequent years, as I, 
a resident of the Park can testify, by the 
many pilgrims to the Longfellow house and 
Park which each day has brought and still 
brings. They are of all ages and of all races. 

During the late war it was touching to see 
the reverent interest with which boys on their 
way to service — sailors from ships in the 
Harbor, and students from the Cambridge 
Radio School — came to gaze at the monu- 
ment and house. To many of them Boston 
meant Longfellow, and their first excursion 
was to his home. One wondered in how many 

II 



of their far-away homes might still be hang- 
ing the framed certificate or the picture of the 
Longfellow house, testifying to that early 
membership. 

The association was encouraged in its 
efforts at various times by many gifts and ex- 
pressions of interest from unlooked for 
sources, of money and of material relating to 
the life and work of Longfellow. 

In 1884, a generous contribution was sent 
from the literary men of Brazil, instigated by 
His Majesty, the Emperor Dom Pedro, who 
was a personal acquaintance and ardent ad- 
mirer of Longfellow. 

Also in 1884, the Association received from 
the Longfellow Memorial x'\ssociation of Lon- 
don, through the Hon. Henry O. Houghton 
who brought them to this country, about five 
hundred valuable autograph letters relating 
to the placing in Westminster Abbey of the 
bust of Longfellow. 

Later in 1884, two replicas of this Westmin- 
ster Abbey bust were sent to America. One 
was given to Harvard College, and the other 
to the Maine Historical Society, in Portland. 

In 1 9 10, through the efforts of Professor 
Bliss Perry, a gift of money came from the 

12 



National Longfellow Association in Washing- 
ton. This was part of the surplus subscrip- 
tions after the Monument to Longfellow in 
Washington had been completed. 

The most encouraging of all of these un- 
looked for gifts was made in 1883, in the very 
beginning, at the first annual meeting, when 
the children of Longfellow presented the 
Association with the land for the Park, oppo- 
site the Longfellow House and reaching from 
Brattle Street to Mt. Auburn Street. Four 
years later, in 1887, they doubled their gift by 
adding an equal amount of land, opposite the 
Park, between Mt. Auburn Street and the 
Charles River; but this land was taken in 1894 
by the City and in 1921 was made a part of 
the Metropolitan Park System, though with- 
out any designation to mark the source from 
which it came. 

In offering the second gift of land to the 
Association on behalf of his sisters, Alice, 
Annie and Edith, his brother Charles and 
himself, Mr. Ernest W. Longfellow wrote: 

"Such a breathing space on the river in connec- 
tion with the playing fields of the College, which 
my father was so instrumental in securing, will one 
day be a great boon to Cambridge when it becomes 

^3 



crowded, and would be a better monument to my 
father and more in harmony with his character 
than any graven image that could be erected." 

The "playing fields" referred to in this 
prophetic letter were the seventy acres of 
land, on the opposite side of the river, which 
Longfellow, with some of his family and 
friends, as far back as 1870, twelve years 
before his death, had deeded to Harvard Col- 
lege. Although a considerable area of this 
land was taken by the Metropolitan Park 
Commission for the Speedway Section of the 
Charles River Reservation, yet the original 
Longfellow gift now furnishes about three- 
fifths of the sixty-one acres which forms 
Soldiers' Field, the athletic grounds of Har- 
vard College, thus contributing to fulfill the 
purpose of that admirable gift to the College. 

In this connection, it is appropriate to men- 
tion the latest gift for the benefit of the public 
made by the Longfellow family; because 
through it, the Association has been enabled 
to realize their ideal for the final memorial, 
an ideal quite beyond their plan at the outset, 
as stated in the recommendation of 1882 al- 
ready quoted. When the will of Longfellow's 
daughter, Edith (Mrs. Richard H. Dana), 

14 



was proved in 191 5, the fact was disclosed 
that as a further means of honoring their 
father, the children of Longfellow had pro- 
vided for a perpetual trust of the house and 
grounds where he had lived. 

In the deed of this remarkable gift stand 
these simple words: 

"to be held, preserved, maintained and managed 
for the benefit of the public as a specimen of the 
best colonial architecture of the i8th century, 
as a historical monument of the occupation of 
the house by George Washington during the siege 
of Boston during the Revolutionary War, and as a 
memorial to Henry W. Longfellow." 

The trustees named are: John F. Moors, of 
Boston, Fellow of Harvard College; Edmund 
M. Parker of Cambridge, Treasurer of the 
Longfellow Memorial Association; and Dud- 
ley L. Pickman, Jr., of Boston. Together with 
the deed the trustees received from these 
donors a substantial sum of money, to keep 
the homestead in repair and pay the insur- 
ance and the taxes, if any. 

These four gifts together make the memo- 
rial to the nation's best-love poet, a truly 
noble one. The gifts cover a period of forty- 
five years, from 1870 to 191 5, by coincidence 

15 



just equalling the number of years Longfellow, 
by living in it, made the house memorable. 
They will keep open and unobstructed for- 
ever a stretch of land nearly three quarters of 
a mile in length from the Longfellow House to 
Brighton, comprising more than seventy-six 
acres, larger in area than Boston Common 
and the Public Garden combined. 

We who love Cambridge may take satis- 
faction in the thought that here will be a spot 
in our ever-changing City that will not be 
changed; and that future generations may 
find rest and refreshment just as we do, from 
the sight of the fine old house among its 
lilacs on the one hand, and on the other, of 
the sweep of the Park, the Charles, and the 
Meadows and hills beyond. 

In 1 887, the Association decided to have the 
Park laid out. They consulted the eminent 
landscape architect, Charles Eliot, creator of 
the Boston Metropolitan Park System. He 
made comprehensive plans which were unani- 
mously adopted and faithfully adhered to 
until the final erection of the memorial in 
1914, when the landscape architect, Paul 
Frost, conscientiously adapted them to meet 
some changed conditions which then arose. 

16 



In 1907 the Park was conveyed, by the 
Association, to the City of Cambridge which 
accepted the perpetual care of it. 

In 191 2, the accumulated funds on hand, 
were sufficient to warrant the Association in 
making a contract for the Memorial Monu- 
ment; and the Sculptor, Daniel Chester 
French, was asked to submit for approval, 
drawings, and a model for a monument. 

Mr. French, in collaboration with Henry 
Bacon, architect, submitted with his design 
for the monument a plan for the reconstruc- 
tion of the stone stairway and wall between 
the two levels of the Park built in 1889 by the 
architect, C. Howard Walker, this change 
being necessary in order to place the monu- 
ment in line with the Longfellow house and 
the Mt. Auburn Street gate. These plans 
were approved by the Longfellow family and 
then accepted by the Association. 

But it was not until two years later that the 
Association was to attain their object in the 
finished work of Art. Then on a beautiful 
Autumn afternoon, October 29, 1914, they 
assembled in the Park with members of the 
Longfellow family and guests of honor to take 
part in the unveiling ceremony of the Long- 
fellow Memorial Monument. 

17 



The dedicatory address was made by the 
President of the Association, Dr. Charles W. 
Eliot, who said as he stood beside the monu- 
ment: 

"The Longfellow Memorial Association was es- 
tablished shortly after the death of Henry Wads- 
worth Longfellow in 1882. It early secured this 
piece of land between Brattle Street and Mt. 
Auburn Street on which we are standing, and later 
the piece across Mt. Auburn Street which reaches 
to the Parkway and the River. In his own life- 
time, Longfellow and a few friends had given to 
Harvard University the marshes on the opposite 
side of the River to be kept forever open. Thus, 
the beautiful prospect from the southern windows 
of the house where Washington made his head- 
quarters, and Longfellow worked through many 
happy years, was secured in perpetuity for the 
enjoyment of all who pass along these two much- 
travelled thoroughfares, or visit yonder historic 
house or these memorial grounds. 

Having accomplished thus much, the Associa- 
tion waited until the money in their hands became, 
by accumulation, sufficient to cover the cost of an 
adequate monument in stone and bronze. They 
were sure that the fame of Longfellow would 
endure without any local monument, and that an 
adequate monument would be appropriate and 
welcome after the lapse of a whole generation, or of 
many generations. A poet's fame shares the life of 
the language in which he speaks; and only the 

18 



great musical composer finds a more universal 
acceptance. Music, indeed, speaks a universal 
language. 

The poet, too, is the great dispenser of fame. 
In the poems of Longfellow are embalmed the 
memories of many precious human characters, 
both real and imaginary, and of striking historical 
events — both sorrowful and glorious. The poet 
can confer lasting remembrance on men and 
things worth remembering, as either warning or 
example. It is the poet that best immortalizes 
mortals. 

In teaching mankind, the poet, like the painter 
or the sculptor, has the advantage of putting his 
lessons into exquisite forms which survive because 
of their own intrinsic excellence and loveliness. 
The genius of Longfellow was always exerted in 
defense or furtherance of things good, pure, just, 
and merciful. He taught love, good will, simplic- 
ity, and candor, and courage and fortitude in sup- 
port of liberty and justice. His poems depict many 
of the sorrows and tragedies of the individual life, 
and of the life of the race; but through all his writ- 
ings there gleams faith in the ultimate prevailing 
of good over evil, joy over sorrow, and life over 
death. 

The monument we are about to unveil is the 
work of an eminent Sculptor who commemorates 
a Poet by setting before coming generations his 
features in bronze, and the figures in marble of 
six characters made familiar to millions of readers 
by his verse. A commemorative purpose could 

19 



not be more appropriately or expressively executed. 
One fine art praises and adorns another. 

I invite Priscilla Thorpe, a granddaughter of 
Longfellow, to unveil the monument. 

Mr. Mayor, the Longfellow Memorial Associa- 
tion now presents this fine monument to the 
City of Cambridge, in full faith that the City will 
preserve and keep these grounds, this bust, and 
these marble figures as a worthy memorial of a 
famous man whose life-work makes Cambridge a 
precious place not only to those who live in it, but 
to millions of persons who have never set foot 
within its borders. The value of a city as a place 
to live in is determined generation after generation 
notonly by its productive industries and its com- 
merce, but by its churches, schools, and parks, by 
the memories of great and good lives lived there, 
and by the grateful remembrance in new genera- 
tions of good influences which thence proceeded. 
So long as the City shall stand, Cambridge will be 
fairer, and dearer to mankind because Longfellow 
lived here." 

In reply, Mayor T. W. Good made a short 
appreciative speech of acceptance in behalf 
of the City. 

When the covering was drawn aside a bronze 
portrait-bust of Longfellow was revealed. It 
rests on a marble pedestal, standing against a 
broad background of Tennessee marble four- 
teen feet wide and twelve feet high, built into 

20 



the terrace wall of the upper Park forming a 
protecting canopy slightly arched above and 
supported by a marble column at each end. 
On the face of this protecting canopy are six 
figures cut in relief, familiar to all readers of 
Longfellow — Miles Standish, Sandalphon, 
The Village Blacksmith, The Spanish Student, 
Evangeline, and Hiawatha. 

The monument stands in a small green, 
sunken garden, fenced by a low stone coping 
and hedged in by tall arbor vitae trees. 
Three stone steps at the entrance lead down 
to the grassy floor of the garden where inter- 
secting gravel walks end in stone seats on 
either side. 

Here the visitor to the memorial may sit in 
peace and retirement to study its beauty, 
shut in from the surrounding Park and ever 
encroaching City. 



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